vox and the national leadership of the party have finished the campaign of the 28-M in the tribunals. The Vox councilor in the City Council of Valencia, Vincent Montanezhas denounced the party of Santiago Abascal before the Prosecutor’s Office for alleged crimes of “illegal financing of political parties, documentary falsification, prevarication, embezzlement, coercion and criminal organization“.
The complaint accuses Vox of financing the ordinary training activity with public funds assigned to municipal groups throughout Spain and points to Javier Ortega-Smithvice president and candidate for City of Madridas the leader responsible for giving instructions to obtain financing.
He June 25, 2019shortly after the town councils were constituted after the last municipal elections, Vox sent an email to the heads of the municipal groups detailing a series of instructions for the management of the economic allocation.
The document, provided in the complaint and to which EL ESPAÑOL has had access, determines that “the corporation pays the financial allocation in a bank account associated with the group. In this case, it is necessary to request the NIF at the AEAT and the opening of two accounts by the municipal group Vox”.
The complainant details that he consulted the operation with the economic services of the Valencia City Council and, by showing the submitted procedure and its annexes, “They told me that this was not possible to do“.
According to the complaint, City Hall officials reported that “the accounts must be in the name of the councilors and in the city of Valencia and that said document was an irregular way of proceeding which intended to transfer control over the group allocation account to the party leadership”.
Vicente Montañez transferred the warning to the Vox leadership, but they replied that “he had to strictly follow the instructions given by the party and that, if he did not, I would face the consequences“.
“I did not comply with the order because I understood that it violated current legislation and against the express instructions received from the economic and legal services of the Valencia City Council,” according to the councilor in his complaint.
Meeting with councilors
On December 2, 2020, Ortega Smith chaired a videoconference meeting in which more than 300 councilors from all over Spain in which he raises this method of financing again.
The meeting lasted for more than an hour and the councilor has sent the full recording to the Prosecutor’s Office. The call only affected “councilors of municipal groups with an economic assignment of a certain importance“.
In the recording it is heard how the then manager of the party “also recognizes that the objective is for the money to revert to the general services of the party and that this model that was implemented in Balearics he party act integrated inside
of vox allowed him to have a series of services that otherwise
it would be impossible”.
Likewise, it transfers the objective that “nothing is returned“to the town halls and that everything goes to the party, despite the fact that the current legislation prevents it.
Javier Ortega Smith stated that “the agreements will help strengthen our municipal team” and that “although we have different CIF, we are a single project.”
“It costs money, and we have all gotten used to the fact that elections are coming up and we have a communication team that designs campaigns… But all that doesn’t fall from the skyall that for which each one is a councilor is given by a national structure”, is heard in the recording.
In this sense, “he lets it fall that we have to pay for it from the municipal groups (we pay so that the campaigns go well and thus we repeat), which It could clearly be an embezzlement of public funds as well as party financing“, the complaint states.
For the complainant, “it appears that Vox establishes a clear framework to embezzle public funds from municipal groups, in an organized way, with the use of tricks aimed at deceiving and extorting non-membership.”
Or what would be worse, the complaint continues, “not having in the next mandate those who are not willing to submit to the commission of the alleged crimes“.
false invoices
After presenting the complaint this Friday, Montañez, who does not appear on the Vox list for the municipal elections on Sunday, explained that there was a third way to get hold of the funds from the municipal group, a way that he described as “direct” and that they wanted to apply “under duress and threats“.
This implied that the municipal group paid a bill that, in the case of Valencia, amounted to more than 8,000 euros“for services that had never been provided nor was there an intention to provide” for the use of venues.
Vicente Montáñez, councilor in Valencia and complainant.
Finally, the complaint warns of the use by the party of municipal subsidies to finance certain venues, and provides documentation of a case in alzira (Valencia), where a contract is signed with a company for the rental of premises for the citizen headquarters, which is later used as the headquarters of the Vox Valencia party.
Abascal’s party has accumulated a string of resignations in recent months after the leadership imposed the former PP deputy Ignacio Gil Lazarocurrently fourth vice president of the Congress of Deputies, as president in the province of Valencia.
In addition, many public officials have expressed their discomfort at the free appointment of the university professor Carlos Flores Juberiassentenced to one year in prison for ill-treatment of his ex-partner in 2002, as a candidate for the Generalitat Valenciana.
The complainant continues to be part of Vox and has positioned himself alongside the former deputy macarena olona after leaving the party. Montañez assures that the only reason why he does not repeat as a candidate in Valencia is not to accept the indications of the national leadership.
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